Company Co-Founded by UH Researcher Wins Nanomedicine Award

Endomagnetics,
the company co-founded in the United Kingdom by a University of Houston
researcher to develop products to improve the standard of breast cancer care,
has been named one of two winners of an inaugural Nanomedicine Award in the
European Union.

Endomagnetics was founded to develop and
distribute products based on technology created by Audrius Brazdeikis, research
associate professor of physics in the UH College of Natural Sciences and
Mathematics, with colleagues at the University College of London to detect the
spread of breast cancer and allow physicians to better plan interventions.

The Nanomedicine Award was organized by
the European Technology Platform for Nanomedicine (ETPN), together with the
EU-funded consortium NANOMED 2020, to honor the best international nanomedicine
innovations. It was announced during the Nanomedicine Panel Session at
BIO-Europe 2013 in Vienna, Austria.

“It’s nice to be recognized by our peers
for all our efforts,” said Brazdeikis, who remains involved with the company.

Endomagnetics, based in Cambridge, was formed
to bring the technology developed by Brazdeikis and researchers from University
College of London, physicist Quentin Pankhurst and systems engineer Simon
Hattersley, to the marketplace.

The technology includes the SentiMag, an
intraoperative probe that allows surgeons to more easily locate the sentinel
lymph node – the first lymph node to which a tumor’s metastasizing cancer cells
drain – by using nanotechnology and advanced magnetic sensors.

Dr. Eric Mayes, CEO of Endomagnetics, said
the Nanomedicine Award will increase the visibility of the company’s technology
to potential partners.

“Endomagnetics is honored to have been
selected for an inaugural Nanomedicine Award, particularly given the global
candidature and great promise of this convergent industry,” he said.

The technology already is used in eight
European countries, and the company is seeking regulatory approval in other
countries, including the United States, of its SentiMag system, which
eliminates the need for the radioactive isotopes in use today, said Brazdeikis,
who heads the Biomedical Imaging Group at the Texas Center for
Superconductivity at UH.

Endomagnetics will showcase its technology
at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio Dec. 11-13.